ENERGY, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change Minister Yeo Bee Yin today reiterated that Malaysia would not be a dumping ground for the world’s plastic waste.

“Our position has always been that we would not let illegal smuggling of plastic waste and contaminated plastic waste into the country,” she said in response to the world’s leading environmental protection group Greenpeace’s claim that Italy has been exporting hazardous plastic waste to Malaysia. 

She said this at a press conference after launching a ministry Initiative, in Kuala Lumpur, today.

Yeo said that the biggest exporters of the illegal plastic waste to Malaysia was not Italy but the United Kingdom, France, the United States and Japan.

Greenpeace alleged that in the first nine months of 2019, some 2,880 tonnes of plastic waste weree exported to Malaysia and almost half were received by companies operating illegally.

Meanwhile, Yeo said her ministry would continue with its efforts to identify containers of illegally imported plastic waste to be returned to the countries of origin. 

“Under the Basel Convention, we can inform the authorities from the other side (country of origin) that we will return the plastic waste to them.

“Normally, most of these countries will accept the container and so far they have never said that they don’t want them back.”

Yeo was previously reported as saying that Malaysia would send back 110 containers of illegally imported plastic waste to their countries of origin by June. 

She said of the total, 60 were from the United States, 15 (Canada), 14 (Japan), nine from the United Kingdom, eight from Belgium, and one each from Mexico, Hungary, France and Jamaica. – February 11, 2020.